[JamesBrown]

I first heard about Impostor Syndrome when having Lunch with a Researcher from MIT's Media Lab. He was a very good programmer, and a brilliant designer who explained that he always felt like an impostor, since his background was in art and here he was in the engineering world. I've started to feel the same way myself recently.

Over the last 3 years my career has really taken off. In my current position I find myself flying to customer sites and meeting with customers, often the youngest in the room by 20 years, but I am there as a subject matter expert. I wake up nearly every morning before these meetings stressed, and incredibly nervous that I am not going to be what the customers want or need, and that they will think I am a fraud, and that will then reflect poorly on the company I work for. I know that I know my stuff, and I know that I am a very capable engineer, but I can never get over these feelings that I am not the expert other people think I am, and that some day they will find that out, and it will collapse.

I can't say for sure how to deal with it, as it is something that I clearly haven't over come. I spend a lot of time having to convince myself that I am not where I am by accident. In these meetings, the thing that gets me over my nerves is just getting into the technical aspects, while it is the source of the stress, as soon as I am presenting and discussing, the stress goes away, the customer always receives it well, and I am in my comfort zone, at least until next time.